How police harassment, jailhouse snitches, and a runaway war on
drugs imprisoned an innocent family

In the years between the alleged buy in 2001 and the Colomb
trial in 2006, Charlot changed his story several times. In 2002 he
told a private investigator hired by Colomb’s defense lawyers (in a
recorded conversation) that the buy never happened at all, that
he’d made the entire thing up to appease law enforcement officials.
Charlot himself was facing a host of drug charges at the time. But
Charlot soon was back to his original story, telling the grand jury
that “everyone in Church Point dealt with the Colombs,” though he
couldn’t provide authorities with the name of a single Colomb drug
customer other than himself.

Minutes after Charlot’s alleged drug buy, the local drug task
force raided the Colomb home in full SWAT attire, taking down the
unlocked front door with a battering ram. They handcuffed Ann
Colomb at gunpoint and rummaged through her belongings. James
Colomb had to be taken to the hospital with a panic attack and
heart palpitations. In a guest room dresser (not Ann Colomb’s panty
drawer, where Charlot allegedly told police the drugs were stored),
police found 72 grams of crack cocaine, not in rock form, as
Charlot alleged, but in round, uncut “cookies,” along with a
handgun. The amount of cocaine was significant; a typical “hit” of
two to three rocks weighs only a fraction of a gram.

At the time, Ann and James Colomb’s daughter, Jennifer, was
staying in the guest room with her then-boyfriend (now husband)
Timothy Price. Price, now 26, immediately said the drugs and gun
were his. He still does. “I was dealing crack on the side,” Price
says. “It wasn’t anything major. And it was stupid. But that stuff
was all mine. After we took Jennifer’s dad to the hospital, I heard
that they had taken Miss Ann to jail. I can’t tell you how bad I
felt. Miss Ann wouldn’t allow a single joint in that house. And
because of me, they were trying to say she was some kind of drug
dealer.”

Price drove to the police station to turn himself in. “I told
them the dope and the gun was mine,” he says. “My mom is a police
officer. The gun was hers.”

But Price says the sheriff’s deputies wanted nothing to do with
him. “When I told them it was all mine, they put me in a holding
cell for about 15 minutes,” he recalls. “Then they came and told me
to go home. They said, ‘The dope’s not yours. Tell Edward to come
get his momma.’ After that, I didn’t really know what to do.”

Several months later, Price says, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett
Grayson sent him a letter asking him to come in for questioning. By
that time, police had traced the gun found with the cocaine to
Price’s mother. Nevertheless, Price says, “Mr. Grayson was
surprised when I told him the dope was mine.” Grayson and U.S.
Attorney Donald Washington did not respond to multiple requests for
an interview.

Later, Price says, Grayson tried to convince him to say his
girlfriend, Jennifer, had cajoled him into taking a fall for the
drugs. When Grayson threatened Price with 10 to 15 years in prison
if he continued to claim the cocaine as his own, Price says he
decided to get an attorney. When later called before the grand
jury, Price acknowledged the gun was his, but on the advice of his
lawyer he pled the Fifth Amendment when asked about the drugs.

Today Price says the drugs definitely were his, just as he did
immediately after the raid. “I lost a lot of friends and relatives
over all of this,” he says. “People looked at me like I was a
ghost.” Price was never charged for the cocaine. Five years later,
Ann Colomb would take the hit for the cocaine in federal court.
Although Price and Jennifer are now married, the Colomb family
still hasn’t completely forgiven him. Normally warm, Ann Colomb
cools at the mention of Price’s name. Her sons Edward and Sammie
roll their eyes when asked about him. But all seem to hold back
their disdain now that he’s family.

“He did what he had to do,” Edward says, referring to Price
pleading the Fifth. “The drugs were his and he tried to take credit
for them. I guess you can’t blame a guy for not wanting to go to
jail.”

“He brought drugs into my home,” Ann says. “We can move on from
that. Timmy’s going to have to live with what he done. That’s
probably enough punishment for him.”

Although the raid was a local police operation, its results soon
attracted the attention of Assistant U.S. Attorney Grayson. With
the aid of more than 30 jailhouse informants, he would grow it into
a major federal drug conspiracy case. The first federal indictment
against the Colombs came down in May 2002. Subsequent indictments
continued through 2004. The final indictment sought to seize Ann
and James Colomb’s home.

One other charge resulted from the raid. When the police came
in, they say they found Sammie Davis in a room where an unloaded
shotgun was stored in a closet. A police officer at the scene says
Davis immediately admitted to him that the gun belonged to him.
Davis denies this, explaining that he didn’t even live in the house
at the time. (All of Ann’s sons had moved out by then.) Although
there was nothing illegal about the gun itself, Davis was a
convicted felon, the result of his no-contest plea in the 1993
incident. He’d later be convicted in a separate trial of being a
felon in possession of a firearm. The Colomb family’s lawyers
believe that news of Sammie’s conviction spread through the federal
prison system, inspiring a second wave of jailhouse informants to
come to Grayson with new allegations of selling drugs to the Colomb
family.

The Government Builds Its CaseBrett
Grayson had made a name for himself by bringing down the drug
empire of Houston kingpin John Timothy Cotton between 2000 and
2004. But after Cotton’s conviction, defense attorneys alleged that
Grayson had relied on improper jailhouse snitch testimony,
testimony they say ranged from inconsistent to provably false. One
attorney alleged he had proof that a network of federal prison
inmates called the “Hot Boyz” were trading and selling information
about pending drug cases, including notes from the prosecutors,
photos of the suspects, and even grand jury testimony.

But Grayson had collected boxes and boxes of other evidence
against Cotton and his associates, so any problems with the snitch
testimony, courts later ruled, were “harmless error”—not enough to
overturn any convictions. Still, the testimony coming from the
inmates at the federal penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas, known as
Beaumont Low, troubled U.S. District Court Judge Tucker Melancon
(no relation to the Acadia Parish sheriff), who would develop
similar misgivings about the jailhouse witnesses Grayson called to
the stand to testify against the Colomb family.

It is rare for a sitting federal judge to agree to an interview
about one of his cases. Melancon says he can’t remember ever
previously speaking with a journalist about the events in his
courtroom. But this case bothered him. “I saw some of these
[informants] in previous cases,” Melancon says. “It was like
revolving-door inmate testimony. The allegation was that there was
in the federal justice system a network of folks who were trying to
get relief from long sentences by ginning up information on folks
being tried in drug cases. I’d heard about it before. But it all
culminated in the Colomb trial.”

By the end of 2002, Grayson had found 16 prison informants to
testify against the Colombs. According to post-trial motions,
Grayson says the informants came to him voluntarily, without
solicitation. During the trial, Grayson argued that the informants
were credible witnesses because it wasn’t necessarily in their
interest to testify. Snitches, Grayson argued, aren’t treated well
in prison.

But Grayson’s witnesses had clearly benefited from their
testimony when he’d used them in the past, in the form of reduced
sentences. One career criminal, Reginald Milstead, had testified
for Grayson in a prior case in addition to the Colomb case and in
exchange had his life sentence cut down to 10 years—of which he’d
already served seven. Another of Grayson’s witnesses had a life
sentence reduced to 15 years, according to defense briefs filed
after the Colombs’ conviction.

Between June and September 2004, a second wave of inmates sent
Grayson letters asking to testify against the Colombs. It began
shortly after Sammie Davis was convicted on the gun charge. Grayson
signed up an additional 16 witnesses. “Grayson’s home phone number
must have been written all over the walls at Beaumont Low,” quips
Steve Shapiro, Edward Colomb’s trial lawyer. “He had that whole
prison jumping to tell him whatever he wanted to hear.”

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I'm from Louisiana, and I can tell you that the "War On Drugs"
has corrupted law enforcement there; in the town my parents live
in, (about 40 mi. from New Orleans) the sheriff threatened to plant
weed on the newly-elected mayor, before said-sheriff was caught
running guns he probably got from drug-busts.
Stories like Jena 6 are milked for drama by the Mainstream media,
but it's stories like this that are much more common; thanks for
covering it!

What I really wanna know is if one of the loyal H&R readers
is moved to take up arms and plug a few crummy D.A.s (as daily does
seem more and more likely) whether Radley would be brought up on
incitement charges.

I find it difficult to believe that Assistant U.S. Attorney
Brett Grayson would knowingly seek out a conviction on these
people. He, and his superior, based on his statement, still think
the Columbs are guilty of drug trafficking. They are clearly
delusional and therefore, I suggest, that they both be removed from
office due to severe mental incapacity.

Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! The fact that the 'legal'
system finally worked -- the Colombs have their lives back, with
prejudice (literally and legally!) -- hardly imbues one with hope
for a fine-tuned 'justice' system. Someone's head needs to role on
this one -- and DA Washington and/or assistant DA Grayson seem
front-and-center.

Man, man, man. I have been in the US for 18 months. Before that
the UK for 4 years, but I am a South African working on
sustainability and African investment. I have been crying about the
lack of good media out here in the US. I found it. Thanks for this
piece. It reminds us what the media can be if they really want to
be...

I was extremely disappointed in Mr Balko's article. What a
disappointment! As a member of this family, this article presented
false statements and inaccuracies. I think Mr Balko needs to check
out Webster's and look up the definitions of "racist" as well as
"prejudice", there are vast differences between the two. This only
proves to me that crooked journalists are no better than crooked
cops and prosecutors. Report the TRUTH, don't FABRICATE it!

Time to bring in the feds and clean up law enforcement in this
area. Also time for a lawsuit to drain the town dry of funds for
allowing these racists to do this to these people. Make every
person who turned a blind eye pay their taxes to reimburse the
Colombs for what was done by their town to them.

As of press time, none of the Colomb lawyers, the Colomb family,
or anyone else affiliated with the case were aware of any such
investigation. Melancon says he’s confident it’s being done,
although he’s heard nothing about the investigation since his
December 2006 ruling. Phone calls to U.S. Attorney Washington,
Assistant U.S. Attorney Grayson, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for
the Southern District of Texas inquiring about the status of the
investigation were not returned.

As of press time, none of the Colomb lawyers, the Colomb family, or anyone else affiliated with the case were aware of any such investigation. Melancon says he's confident it's being done, although he's heard nothing about the investigation since his December 2006 ruling. Phone calls to U.S. Attorney Washington, Assistant U.S. Attorney Grayson, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas inquiring about the status of the investigation were not returned.